Birds of Prey
by xboxman523
Summary: Ryan Holliday wasn't expecting much when his boss told him Alfred, Arthur and him that they were being sent to the Middle East to act as mercenary pilots in the Dhimarese air force. He certainly wasn't expecting to meet his old enemy.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello and welcome to the first story I have published. My friend helped me with making it. We both are excited to see what people think of it. Disclaimer: We do not own Hetalia.**

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I took a long look at the surroundings in the room that was told by me and Alfred's boss to meet him, Arthur, Arthur's boss and Alfred in at precisely 1200. When I arrived at the room the chairs were positioned in an order that reminded me of a theatre, which Alfred always spelled theater no matter how many times Arthur tried to correct him. Speaking of Alfred, perched on a metal folding chair was, Alfred sleeping next to an annoyed Arthur.

Arthur stood up and said "Ryan, glad to see you're here. Hey Alfred, Ryan is here. Alfred, Alfred… America." Arthur then tried to wake up Alfred by poking him multiple times. All this provoked from Alfred was that he just snorted a bit and turned the other direction. "Wake up you wanker, soon our bosses are going to begin to speak" growled Arthur. Finally Arthur put his face close to Alfred's ear and shouted 'Wake Up!" Alfred then jumped up in shock and in that instant head-butted Arthur pretty hard. "You % #% %! Watch that dumb $!$ !#$ head of yours" howled Arthur.

As Arthur began to nurse his bruised jaw, Alfred turned to me and said "Hey, Ryan you made it." It was at that moment that our boss stopped talking with Arthur's boss and turned to us. He reached up and pulled down a projector screen from the top of the whiteboard.

"I'll make it brief," said our boss "Recently, Paran a Middle Eastern nation that has had very close ties with the Soviet Union has gone through a sort of Nationalist Revolution. Now the government of Paran wants to flex it's muscles so they have made threats to their neighbor, the Republic of Dhimar. "

At this point, I raised my hand, Arthur's boss gave me a nod. "What's this got to do with us"?

Arthur's boss smoothly replied "The Dhimarese government is nervous that a war might occur so they have called mercenaries to join their air force."

"So let me get this straight, Dhimar needs heroes!" said Alfred, "Ryan that's perfect for us since you were in our air force and I'm a hero!" as he was saying this he raising his arms and in some sick running joke, he slapped Arthur across the face, as well as slapping my shoulder. Arthur wincing as he was struck.

Arthur's boss nodded "indeed we thought Ryan's experience in aviation would be perfect for this task." After the briefing Alfred, Arthur and I were having a chat out in the hallway.

"Our bosses gave me a list of the aircraft we are going to be flying in," I said.

"I bet Ryan and me, are going to be in F22 raptors," Alfred happily chirped, "it is our country's finest fighter jet, and if it's made by me then it's the best in the world."

"Sorry to burst your bubble Alfred," England said while looking at the list, "You and Ryan are going to be in a F4 Phantom 2 E variant while I'm going to be flying a Lightning F3"

"Damn it" moaned Alfred and he lowered his shoulders and let out a big sigh.

"Don't worry" I said while patting Alfred on the back "you'll get to fly it someday." "Besides man," I continued, "she may be old but she still got a nice pair of legs." As the three of us walked out of the building, security personnel led us into a armored limousine. After a short ride we arrived at the airfield where our flight to Dhimar was going to depart. I looked over the plane noting the Dhimar marking and the rust. As the plane took off, I slowly started to nod off into a nice dark slumber.

Suddenly, I felt a hand shaking me and a voice saying "wake up." I lethargically squirmed around a little bit and yawned "what is it?" "We've arrived" I blinked open my eyes and saw Arthur looking me in the face.

"Come on, everybody, let's go!" Alfred yelled in his usual voice in the background. I stretched out and reached for the edge of my seat and pushed myself out of my seat grabbing my duffel bag on the way. As I stepped down the loading ladder, suddenly bright sunlight flooded my vision I closed my eyes until finally I was able to see. A wave of heat suddenly burst upon me making me sweat a lot inside my flight suit. As I looked around I saw a few hangers, munitions depots and personnel building. A big airstrip was laid in the middle of the base with some relatively well-kept buildings surrounding it to the sides.

"We might as well go check where our commander is" Arthur said.

"Yeah I can't wait!" said Alfred. As we walked in between the buildings: a multitude of personnel were in the middle of walking around doing their tasks. Arthur stopped one of them and asked him where the commanders' office was. The man pointed to a particularly big building in the middle of the air base. Arthur thanked him, called us over and we made our way to the office. As Arthur opened the door a burst of cool air greeted us, and me and Alfred both perked up immediately now that we weren't sweltering in the heat. A short, bald man was sitting behind a wooden desk looking at papers, with a serious expression on his face. He looked up at us and his expression changed to one of polite happiness.

He immediately rose from his desk and said "welcome, are you guys the new pilots the commander has been expecting?" "

Yes, yes we are" said England holding his hand out.

"Very nice to meet you all" said the secretary vigorously shaking Arthurs' hand. "Come, the commander is expecting you guys" said the secretary. He led us up a flight of stairs to a door with a plaque with Beilschmidt written on it. As we walked into the room we saw a middle-aged Caucasian man sporting a well-polished uniform.

"Ah," he said, "it appears the new cannon fodder has arrived". He stood up and gave each of us a rough hand shake. "I'm Major Ludwig Beilschmidt," he began," I don't care what you were before you came here, but now that you are under my commander you will follow whatever orders, do you understand?"

"Ludwig what are you doing here," Alfred and Arthur said!

Ludwig sighed then said, "Hello."

I looked at Alfred and Arthur confusingly and said, "you three know each other."

"Totally dude," Alfred said, "he's Germany."

Ludwig held out his hand and said, "nice to meet you Ryan, I have read your file and I am expecting your help with protecting Dhimar."

I shook his hand and replied, "well if your Germany what are you doin out here?"

Ludwig leaned in and said, "I am uncover as a mercenary who has been given command of this airbase. I will be briefing you on your missions and watching over you from the control tower." After the introduction Ludwig led us over to a pile of papers we had to sign. "Alright then now that you chaps are here I will need to introduce you to the other member of your squadron." While he was saying this though, Alfred was running around his office checking out every single object and playing with some of them. "Ahem" coughed the commander "I think one member is probably not paying attention."

"Alfred," Arthur said with a stern look on his face.

"Oh sorry, dude," Alfred said to Ludwig. Ludwig had a disgusted look on his face after he was called dude.

"We'll take my jeep to the mess hall," he said soon after. When we exited the building Ludwig told Alfred to hold the door open for us. As Arthur and Ludwig walked by Alfred stuck his tongue out at them. We soon entered the jeep me and Alfred were in the back while Ludwig and Arthur were in the front.

"Hey," Alfred whined, "I wanted to be in the shotgun."

Ludwig responded by saying, "If you don't shut your trap I'll show you a real shotgun seat." Alfred got a nervous look on his face and stayed quiet.

While riding along Alfred turned on the radio and gleefully said, "We should totally listen to some American music dudes." He pressed a few buttons and soon Fortunate Son was playing on the radio. "It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son," Alfred began to sing rather poorly.

"Man," I said "I haven't heard this song since I was in Nam."

"Don't forget Ryan, I was there with you," Alfred said.

"Alfred I don't understand why you like this garbage," Arthur said, "Besides everyone knows that the Beatles are the best." Arthur quickly changed the channel and soon Hey Jude was playing. "Hey Jude, don't make it bad," was all Arthur could sing (quite badly though) before he and Alfred started to argue over who has the best music.

While this was going on Ludwig gave me look that seemed to say, "how do you handle being with these guys?"

I tapped his shoulder and whispered to him "Don't worry you'll get used to it."

As the jeep rolled to a gravel-crunching stop outside of the mess hall Ludwig stopped us and said, "Before you go in there, you guys should know that the ground crews don't really seem too fond of this pilot I was told the guy beat a man who laughed at him."

"Ha-ha that doesn't sound bad, "I said, "Arthur, Alfred and I can probably change this bastard's attitude around." When we entered the mess hall the first thing we noticed was that the only person in the room was a woman sitting at a table with grayish-white hair. When the door shut she turned around and I noticed she had a big ribbon on her hair. As I saw her hair, my mind raced back to a place I never wanted to return to.


	2. Chapter 2

I was in the clear-blue skies over North Korea, my F86 Sabre howling as it raced through the wind. I noticed suddenly a black shape moving at great speed in between the clouds. I recognized the plane as a Mig 15, but on the body there was an image of a purple cornflower. The plane veered towards me quickly and in it's cockpit I noticed long white hair under the flight helmet … Smack!

"Ryan you ok dude!" Alfred said nervously.

I woke up and found myself on the floor of the mess hall with Ludwig, Alfred, and Arthur staring at me concernedly. The woman was turned around again reading some sheets of paper.

"I'm fine I just was thinking of something that happened some time ago."

Suddenly the woman stood up and punched Alfred in the head! Alfred's head swayed backwards which made it look like he was in danger of falling over. Just she was about to punch me I grabbed her fist, staring into her eyes. I was finally able to notice the details of her face. Her face had scowl that could kill someone in an instant on it her eyes were like sharpened diamond drills that bored holes through my head. I was quickly thinking of things to do. She looked too strong for me to subdue so I decided to go the nice way.

I asked, "What's your name?"

She responded "Natalya".

"Ok, Natalya my name is Ryan." Natalya didn't say anything back. "Why did you punch my friend Natalya?"

"Because he dares to put my beloved big brother's life in danger," She than threw a dark glance at an oblivious Alfred. Oh, I thought to myself this must be Belarus, Russia's crazy sister.

"Well Natalya do you really think it's necessary to punch my friend because he dislikes your brother"? When I finished my sentence she gave me a hate filled stare that made me feel uneasy, obviously she didn't want to answer the question.

"It seems like you guys are going to get along just fine," Ludwig said smiling though it was obvious he was worried.

"I guess you're right," Arthur said nervously "We're going to get along just fine."

"As my duty as base commander," the Ludwig began with a serious expression on his face, "I have to tell you if you four die no one will you know were here, when you finished with your business here meet me at the hanger so we can check out your aircraft."

Then Ludwig left briskly, he must have been thinking there was going to be a bloodbath.

"Hey Ryan," Alfred said while a smile was forming on his face, "I think you can let go of Natalya's hand now" "AHHAHAHAHHAHA," burst America as his eyes started to water, he looked like he was going to die the way he was laughing so hard.

"That was a good one, Alfred" Arthur said chuckling.

Natalya suddenly got out of my grip and angrily said, "If you ever do that again I will kill you"

"You do understand that you if kill me this squadron will be at 75% strength," I said very seriously even though on the inside I was very nervous. Natalya scoffed at me and walked away with her head turned away, and flipping me the bird.

"Maybe we should go meet Ludwig at the hanger," Arthur said scooting into the conversation. While we were leaving the mess hall I noted how Natalya walked behind Alfred, Arthur and me with a petulant look on her face, and rebuffing all our attempts at a conversation. When we arrived at the hanger we met Ludwig outside the green dome.

"All right, time for you guys to see what we have got in store for you all." He pressed a button on the side of the huge bay doors and the gigantic doors creakily slid apart to reveal what was inside. The things that we were so hoping to see were inside and we were not disappointed. I looked to the left and saw a looking like brand-new F3 Lightning on the far left. I noticed Arthur doing a fist pump as he looked in joy. In the center was a gleaming F4 Phantom looking as menacing as it was awesome. America slapped me heartily on the back as we both admired our plane. My head turned to the right and there was a Mig 21. Wait, a Mig 21? I rubbed my eyes as I looked in disbelief at why there was a Soviet fighter in the hangar with our planes. On the side of the fuselage though there was an image of a purple cornflower. Wait, a purple cornflower? What, why is that … that symbol doing here? A cornflower, a cornflower, I slid against the wall of the hangar bay and put my hands on top of my face. Why that? What is that symbol doing here; I thought I would never see that image again? Oh my god, is she … is she? I blanked out and suddenly I was back in the cockpit over North Korea. The purple cornflower emblazoned Mig 15 unleashed a hail of bullets at me. I then dived down to avoid the fire, the forests and rivers a mere blur as I sped past them. I franticly veered left and right to make the Mig overshoot. I craned my neck back and I saw the Mig was still hounding my tail. I pulled the stick back, my Sabre reacting instantly. I turned left and the Mig and I were coming head on. We passed with inches to spare. It felt like time stopped as we slipped past each other we were so close I could see the pilot's helmet and oxygen mask. I executed a climbing right turn to get behind the Mig. When I got on the Mig's tail, I let loose a hail of bullets speeding in the air as their yellow tails burst through the air. The Mig executed a roll barely just dodging my fire. I was going so fast I found myself below an upside-down Mig 15. "Well, this is getting interesting," I said to myself. The Mig and I rolled trying to lose airspeed. The G forces pressed me back against my seat, stopping me form being able to move any part of my body. For what felt like forever, we kept twisting and turning around each other, trying to make the other overshoot. I faltered, in a moment of over-anxiety; I added too much thrust causing me to be in front. I felt thuds on my Sabre as the Mig's cannons fired. I watched in horror as the cannon shells began to rip my left wing apart. Soon it ripped off, spiraling the plane into a flat spin. My instruments went haywire, lights were flashing. The instruments were either knocked out or spinning crazily. I reached for the ejector seat switch but the G forces held me back in my seat, I was struggling to lean forward and every few seconds I looked at my altimeter. Sweat broke down my face as I strained every muscle in my body. I finally grasped hold of it and pulled it back. Suddenly, my seat was rocketed out of the plane out into the big blue sky. I pulled my rip cord and my parachute blossomed out, I gently floated down thinking the danger had passed. I saw my F86 on fire spinning like a top before it hit the ground and exploded. Suddenly I saw the Mig 15 coming at me; the Mig began opening fire at me! I watched in horror as cannon shells nearly hit me! I waited for the demise that I knew was awaiting me as shells whistled past my body. I let out a great big breath that I was holding in, in terror, when I realized that I was not hurt. As the Mig passed, it pulled into the clouds and out of sight. I then began to gradually descend down, watching the tree-speckled landscape grow larger before me. Finally I felt my feet touch the ground and I immediately kneeled down and started to vomit. I started to shake uncontrollably and my legs gave out below me and I thumped down on the ground staring at the blue sky. I saw a group of American soldiers in their uniforms and clutching their M1 Garands rush over to my location. I could hear them yelling for the medics. While the medics were grabbing me by the arms and dragging me quickly, the soldiers fell into cover behind them warily looking for any enemy attempting to capture an enemy pilot. The medics roughly shook me yelling at me to stay awake. But I could not stop myself from lapsing into a bleak darkness. Never before had I ever been so close to death and from that day forth I would wake up in a cold sweat every time I vividly remembered that day, and that image of a cornflower always brought a terrible mix of anger and fear to my heart. Smack!

"Dude, how many times are you going to faint today . . ." I heard Alfred remark as I woke up. I saw Alfred, Arthur and the Ludwig with worried expressions on their faces while Natalya was behind them.

"Hopefully that was the last time," I said while rubbing my eyes.

"Are you sure you're OK, Ryan," Arthur said with a concerned voice.

"I'm fine, it's just the heat is getting to me," I said lying through my teeth. Before anyone could say another word we heard the tok-tok-tok-tok of anti-aircraft guns going off and huge booms as explosions erupted from the ground around the hangar.

The PA system turned on, "We are under attack this is not a drill I repeat this is not a drill."

"You heard the radio," Ludwig barked at us, "I'm going to the command room, I'm going to brief you guys in the air." Alfred, Arthur, Natalya and I raced to our aircraft.


End file.
